Welcome to America's most Instagrammable city
“I wouldn’t have walked half a block on these streets 10 or 15 years ago – not even a quarter of a block,” says Jessica Goldman Srebnick. She’s referring to the Wynwood neighbourhood in Miami’s north, of which she’s giving me a brief tour.
This part of town used to be – let’s put it diplomatically – rather gritty. But judging by the coffee shops, juice bars and craft breweries one now sees at every turn, those days are gone. And that’s not to mention the 80 art galleries. Goldman Srebnick owns and runs the most prominent of these, Wynwood Walls, an outdoor space that boasts the largest collection of street art murals in the world.
Even for those of us who generally prefer our paint passed from brush to canvas, rather than can to wall, this place is impressive. Covering 30,000 square feet, it features work by many leading artists in the genre: from Kenny Scharf and Brazil’s Os Gemeos to Shepard Fairey (he of the Barack Obama “Hope” posters).
None of them has what you’d call a muted palette. The place is a riot of colour: all mango yellows, cyan blues and bubblegum pinks, which are given extra intensity by the bright Miami sunlight. As for subject matter, aliens and Buddhas jostle for attention with tarantulas and fairy-tale cottages out of the Brothers Grimm; it’s no surprise to learn that, in 2016, Wynwood Walls was the most Instagrammed spot in all of Miami.
“Art has an incredible ability to transform, and this area has been transformed 100 per cent,” says Goldman Srebnick, whose father (the late Tony Goldman) founded the gallery in 2009. Wynwood used to be synonymous with dereliction and infamous as a “springboard zone”, where poorly-off immigrants arrived and exited as soon as possible once they’d made a dime or two. Goldman, however, saw potential in the blank walls of its abandoned warehouses, and thus Wynwood Walls was born.
Strolling around the area today, it can be rather hard connecting the present with the past. Now there are local hipsters everywhere – the girls in floor-length cardigans, the guys with beards better coiffed than hair – as well as scores of tourists who descend every day on Wynwood by coach. Whenever she’s in town, Ivanka Trump apparently swings by, spending time at Panther Café, which she says has a latte to die for.
As for Wynwood Walls itself, the buzz about the place is undeniable. It’s free to enter and people of all ages can be seen breezily coming and going, pushing prams and taking selfies. Many also stop for lunch at the gallery restaurant, Wynwood Kitchen & Bar – too many for my liking, as it means waiting five to 10 minutes for a table. (The baby octopus and tuna tartare, though, are worth the wait.)
“There’s a real sense of community among the art galleries of Wynwood,” Goldman Srebnick tells me over lunch. “Now, more than ever, is the time for dialogue, for looking outwards and opening doors”, she adds, in what seems a clear dig at Ivanka’s father.
On the back of Wynwood Walls’ success, Goldman Srebnick has even been invited to commission a set of murals for Hard Rock Stadium, home to American football team the Miami Dolphins. She’s gracious enough to admit, however, that it wasn’t her or her father’s efforts that put Miami on the map as a serious art destination. That happened in 2002, when the directors of the world’s biggest art fair, Art Basel – held in Switzerland each summer – chose the city as the venue for an annual winter edition. Every December, the art world now flocks to Miami, and though the fair itself is located on South Beach, numerous satellite and spin-off events are held in Wynwood; many people now see these as the main attraction.
If Wynwood’s transformation has been rapid, that is entirely in keeping with the history of Miami as a whole – where things have a habit of happening fast. In the 1880s there was barely a settlement here worthy of the name (the Spanish colonial capital in Florida having been the more northerly city, St Augustine). That was before local landowner Julia Tuttle convinced railroad tycoon Henry Flagler to extend his Florida East Coast railway to the southern tip of the state, then virgin territory. The results were staggering: in subsequent decades, Miami would become a mecca for property developers, holidaymakers and gamblers. The city grew exponentially – though, at the dawn of the 21st century, it was still defined by its sand and sea, and concentrated around the hub of South Beach. Culture vultures didn’t get a look-in.
The recent rise of Wynwood, however, is symptomatic of the embrace of loftier pursuits citywide. On South Beach itself, the New World Center, a concert hall designed by Frank Gehry, opened in 2011 – one of its standout features being a vast outside wall on to which all musical performances are screened, for those watching in a grassy plaza below.
The main trend, though, has been in other parts of town. Not far from Wynwood is the Design District, where one-time warehouses have been converted into high-end fashion boutiques – and where notions of the traditional American mall have been forgotten (the District is open-air and connected by a number of pedestrianised streets). Gucci and Alexander Wang are among the recent luxury-brand arrivals, while Prada and Christian Louboutin were already there but are currently expanding their premises.
Perhaps the most interesting development, however, is happening in Downtown Miami. The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts – said to have the second largest stage in America (after New York’s Metropolitan Opera House) – is now a decade old. More recently, hype has been generated about Museum Park nearby: a waterfront site where David Beckham had once hoped to build a stadium for his Major League football side. Instead, it now boasts two museums in 19 acres of green open space: the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science and the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM).
The latter, designed by Herzog and de Meuron – the Swiss architects also responsible for Tate Modern – shows contemporary and modern art, mostly from the Caribbean and Latin America. In advance, I’d been looking forward to seeing a retrospective of Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc, famous for his immersive light installations in dark rooms. And while neither this nor the works on permanent display disappointed, the building itself is the true star. As I pulled up in a taxi, I actually had to ask the driver if this was the right place: PAMM’s huge veranda makes it look more like a grand beach house than a museum.
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Inside, meanwhile, floor-to-ceiling windows allow natural light to flood in and offer generous views of Biscayne Bay. Seven or eight primary school groups must have been at the museum at the same time as me, but only a couple of those were inside looking at art on the walls. The rest were outside: roaming the sculpture garden, eating a packed lunch on the swings, or gawping at 55,000 exotic plants which (thanks to an arty botanist’s intervention) are growing up and down columns. I’m sure I even saw one of the school teachers grabbing a moment’s tranquillity, and mint tea, in the al fresco café.
I guess the key point here is that this is a museum where the distinction between outdoors and indoors is minimal – or, as Franklin Sirmans, the director of PAMM, tells me, where “the relationship between outdoors and indoors is integral to everything [they] do”.
He adds “this isn’t an isolated jewel box”. Which is to say PAMM doesn’t just offer views of the local landscape but is part of the local landscape – and suddenly Goldman Srebnick’s comment about keeping doors open makes more sense. It wasn’t just a political point she was making, but a geographical one. Miami has, and always will have, great weather. There’s no point fighting that – even as it tries to change its reputation as a destination purely for beach-goers. It makes sense instead to embrace the outdoors where possible, as the prudent powers-that-be at Wynwood Walls, the New World Center, Design District and PAMM have all done.
“Whatever you come to Miami to do,” says Sirmans, “you still have to pack the sunblock”.
Where to see art
Wynwood Walls, 2520 NW 2nd Ave, Wynwood (001 305 531 4411; thewynwoodwalls.com)
Wynwood Art District, To arrange a tour of the galleries call 001 305 814 9290 or visit wynwoodartwalk.com)
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), 103 Biscayne Blvd (001 305 375 3000; pamm.org)
Art Basel will run from Dec 7-10 (001 305 674 1292; artbasel.com/miami-beach)
New World Center, 500 17th Street, Miami Beach (001 305 673 3330; nws.edu/new-world-center)
Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1301 Biscayne Blvd (001 305 949 6722; arshtcenter.org)
Where to shop
Miami Design District (miamidesigndistrict.net)
Where to eat
Wynwood Kitchen & Bar, 2520 NW 2nd Ave, Wynwood (001 305 722 8959; wynwoodkitchenandbar.com)
Where to stay
The Hotel of South Beach, 801 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach; doubles from ￡154 a night.
The Hotel of South Beach
Miami Beach, Florida, United States
7Telegraph expert rating
This historic Art Deco boutique hotel is in the centre of the South Beach action on a busy stretch of Collins Avenue south of Lincoln Road. With a rooftop pool, interior design by Todd Oldham and an onsite restaurant, it’s a piece of vintage South Beach. Read expert review From ￡154per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com